We talked more about the NFL Draft last offseason when the Irish had Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate in the running for first round contention. But today a crop of Irish seniors worked out for NFL scouts, headlined by tight end Kyle Rudolph, who is fighting to be a first round draft pick as he rehabilitates from a hamstring surgery that robbed him of much of the season.

Rudolph was joined by teammates Armando Allen (also rehabbing hip injuries), Robert Hughes, Duval Kamara, Kerry Neal, Kyle Rudolph, Brian Smith, Chris Stewart, Darrin Walls and Ian Williams at Loftus today, where they went through nearly three hours of drills, sprints, interviews and prodding in anticipation of the upcoming NFL Draft.

If you’re looking for all the results, Tony Krausz at the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has you covered. If you’re looking for a guy that impressed, look no further than cornerback Darrin Walls.

It was mildly surprising that Walls wasn’t invited to the Combine, and Walls confirmed that by putting up a 4.39 in the forty-yard dash as well as a 6.88 in the three-cone drill, times that would’ve had him in the lead pack at the combine.

All reports on Rudolph’s workout seem to be positive, with his 4.7-4.8 forty time not really hurting him, especially considering he’s recovering from hamstring surgery. (Rudolph is incapable of not impressing in sweatpants.)

Chris Stewart’s continued commitment to fitness should also be a surprise as he weighed in today at 317 pounds, a fraction of what he once weighed and down significantly from the 358-pounds he played at this year.

Armando Allen weighed in at slightly over 200-pounds and ran in the 4.5s, Ian Williams ran a 7.75 in the three-cone drill, and Brian Smith also helped his cause.

For more, check out the coverage from UND.com or hunt down one of the dozens of draftniks moving Irish players up and down their big boards.

Before we start digging into the season that was, I wanted to clear a few little notes off the desk. The first is that running back Armando Allen and defensive tackle Ian Williams were the only two Irish football players invited to the NFL Scouting Combine. (Obviously, that would change if either Michael Floyd or Kyle Rudolph decide to head to the NFL.) Cornerback Darrin Walls is an alternate.

I can’t say I was surprised that the Irish didn’t get a larger contingency invited, but guys like Chris Stewart, Brian Smith, and Robert Hughes will definitely get looks by NFL teams as well, even if they don’t make the trip to Indy.

Allen receiving an invite to the combine is fortuitous and if he can come back healthy by late February, he’ll have a great chance at making a career of it on Sundays, especially with his versatility out of the backfield. Healthy, he’s the kind of guy that could light up a stopwatch, and the drills in Indy could be somewhere he’ll get noticed.

Williams has also been invited to the Senior Bowl, the best of the college all-star games that serve as a draft showcase.

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Nose tackle Sean Cwynar will undergo surgery on his broken foot, suffered during the Sun Bowl against the Hurricanes. Safety Jamoris Slaughter, who’s been plagued by an ankle injury all season will have minor surgery to help clean up some loose cartilage. Slaughter’s season was essentially ruined by the ankle injury he suffered in the season opening game, an injury that forced Zeke Motta into full-time duty opposite Harrison Smith, and had the Irish down to essentially two healthy safeties for much of the year.

Irish fans can officially take a deep sigh of relief as the knee injury Manti Te’o suffered was diagnosed as a mild sprain, meaning there’s no need for anything other than a little rest for the Irish’s tackling machine.

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Jake Brown of IrishIllustrated.com has a great article on one-time Notre Dame commitment Aaron Lynch, who found some “closure” with the Irish after receiving plenty of backlash for decommitting.

From Brown:

The Seminoles secured Lynch’s commitment on Nov. 16 and Lynch will enroll in Tallahassee after spending a couple days at home following the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

But looking back on how he handled the situation, Lynch has some regrets about how the de-commitment went down. Rather than call Alford to deliver the news, Lynch consulted with his high school coach and sent a text message, then didn’t answer or avoided phone calls.

“I should’ve handled it differently,” Lynch said. “I shouldn’t have sent a text out. I shouldn’t have listened to nobody. I should’ve just called him, that’s how close we were. I regret it and that was foolish of me to do that. So, we didn’t talk for awhile.”

I’m not going to get into the idiotic mindset of fans texting and Facebook-ing recruits, but kudos to Lynch for taking his share of the blame in the entire fiasco.

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With the Irish’s lack of depth at safety a concern, it’s interesting that George Atkinson, one of the Irish’s touted wide receiver commitments, is taking all his snaps at the US Army All-American Bowl at safety.

Atkinson still says he’s coming into South Bend as a wideout, but the cross training at safety, especially if Michael Floyd decides to come back to school.

Having not met with the media since his emotional press conference after the Tulsa game, Brian Kelly spent roughly 20 minutes answering questions as the Irish prepare to take a well-deserved weekend away from football.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Unfortunately, Kelly’s suspicions are confirmed, and Armando Allen has played his last football game in a Notre Dame uniform, with the damage to his hips extensive.

“Armando had surgery today in Tennessee, and it was a specialist. Had only one of the hips repaired. He’s going to have to have another one,” Kelly said. “There was a lot of things in there that showed that maybe this was an injury he’s had for many, many, many years. They’re talking about the timetable to be between 3-4 months.”

Allen exits Notre Dame with the fifth most all-purpose yards in school history, behind Julius Jones, Autry Denson, Allen Pinkett, and Tim Brown, and just in front of Raghib Ismail and Golden Tate, pretty illustrious company.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Allen’s football career, and I suspect that the NFL team that gambles on signing or drafting Armando won’t regret it. He’s a versatile guy, has a nice burst, and if Ryan Grant’s NFL success showed us anything, it’s that a Notre Dame running back doesn’t have to have great collegiate success to have a rock solid NFL career.

*****

With Dayne Crist out for the season, Kelly has moved true freshman Andrew Hendrix into the third quarterback position. When asked if Hendrix was ready to be thrust into game duty, the answer was pretty emphatic.

“His head is spinning. It’s a lot,” Kelly said. “We really tried more than anything else to slow it down. He’s not involved much right now in game-planning. It’s more about just understanding the big picture. Want to make sure he can get the snap, hand it off, if he needs to do that. We’re really going slow with him at this point.”

Hendrix may turn out to be the quarterback of the future for the Irish, and his work on the scout team this year has been impressive by all accounts. But Crist’s injury exposed one of the biggest worries Kelly had going into the season, a gaping lack of depth at the quarterback position.

*****

During the off week, Kelly held a scrimmage for the guys who haven’t gotten a lot of playing time, almost a development report for those freshman and sophomores that haven’t broken into the two-deep. Kelly pointed out a number of players that stood out.

“A number of players. Cam Roberson did a very nice job,” Kelly said. “Alex Welch. Christian Lombard. Kendall Moore was all over the field. To name a few. I was really pleased. Louis Nix, a very difficult guy to block. It was good to see some of those kids play.”

Irish fans expected a guy like Louis Nix to potentially see the field as a freshman, but Nix didn’t show up to camp in optimal shape, and Kelly and his staff have been wise not to play too many young players along the offensive and defensive lines, saving some much needed eligibility.

I was really impressed with what I saw out of Roberson in preseason camp, and with the running back depth as thin as it is with Allen hurt and Gray not yet getting on the field after suffering a knee injury, I wouldn’t have been shocked to see Roberson work his way into the two-deep.

*****

With the Irish getting an extra week of preparation for Utah, Kelly was asked if now-starting quarterback, true freshman Tommy Rees, has taken a more vocal role as “the man” running the Irish offense. Kelly laughed the question off.

“None of that. I would’ve liked to have him walk in and say, coach, don’t worry about it, I got this thing, it’s on my back, let’s roll,” Kelly almost jokingly said. “He’s still a true freshman. He’s got really good savvy, he’s got a great understanding of our offense in a very short period of time, but let’s make no mistake about it. He’s a true freshman that has had one game, and he’ll continue to get better. He loves the game, he’s a great, competitive kid, but we have to take into account that he’s a young player.”

Rees really impressed me with his ability to throw the ball on the short completions, with Pete Sampson of Irish Illustrated pointing out that Rees went 11 for 11 on passes that covered five yards or less, but missed on every throw that went over 20 yards.

(Let’s hope Utah doesn’t notice this trend.)

*****

While many traditionalists would revolt, sign me up for the Irish changing the natural grass in Notre Dame Stadium to field turf. And while Kelly tried to be diplomatic about it, it sounds like he wouldn’t mind the change either.

“The offense, obviously, is such that we like to play fast. And I think it’s pretty clear that that surface plays very fast. It’s not going to be my decision,” Kelly said. “I know that I’ll have my say, and that’s all it will be. I want the best for our football players. I want the best for our team and the best for the kind of offense that we run. I know we’ve been able to play really fast on those surfaces. Don’t know that that’s going to be enough to push it over the top, but it’s more about the kind of team we’re putting together.”

I’ve been pretty vocal in my complaints about the grass in Notre Dame Stadium, and every game you seem to see the turf monster reach out and tackle someone, often times to the detriment of the Irish. I’m not advocating a big Jumbotron or Muscle Milk advertisements on the stadium walls like USC does, but Michigan made the switch to field turf and nobody seemed to really notice.

The Irish offense is going to be predicated on speed and the Irish have done a very good job upgrading that part of the football team, and will continue to do so under Kelly. It only makes sense for Notre Dame to consider changing the surface, considering that the grounds crew hasn’t found a good way to keep the grass in good condition for even half a season, let alone an entire year.

There’s a tricky line to draw when you write about injuries. They are a certainty in football (not unlike death and taxes off the field), but there is also a line where you’ve got to take injuries into account when adjusting your expectations for a team’s ability to perform.

There’s a school of thought that argues (probably successfully, I’d add) that regardless of injuries, Notre Dame shouldn’t lose to Navy or Tulsa. A simple look at the star-ratings and offer list of Notre Dame’s second string would support that claim, though it doesn’t take into account the development that happens after you’ve arrived on campus.

If there was a No. 1 knock on Charlie Weis as a collegiate head coach, it was probably his ability to develop his roster. Elite offensive talent seemed to thrive under Weis’ tutelage, but the middle of the roster — the long-term development of players in years three, four, and five of the program are the players that determine whether or not you’ve got a BCS team or a team filled with NFL prospects. (We’ll get to this later, I promise.)

As we saw plainly in 2007, Charlie Weis did little to develop the second level of his roster in the early years of his tenure, and his career never recovered when his teams in 2008 and 2009 failed to get better than mediocre results, struggling to replace veteran offensive and defensive linemen, safeties, or linebackers.

Brian Kelly entered Notre Dame with a reputation for developing talent, and he quickly set about implementing a practice system and approach that tried to strengthen and ready the depth on the roster. That approach has been put to the test this season, as Kelly not only had to implement new offensive and defensive systems, but also had to instill in his team a “Next Man In” attitude that was often preached by Weis, but never truly implemented.

Kelly started his first spring practice with only two players in “protected” status: Quarterback Dayne Crist, who was recovering from a torn ACL and running back turned wide receiver Theo Riddick, who was recovering from shoulder injury. Tight end Kyle Rudolph was also battling to stay healthy, being monitored by his position coach as a “restricted” player in Kelly’s training system. The Irish excited the Blue-Gold game without a major injury, getting Dayne Crist through every snap of spring practice even while he was less than five months removed from knee surgery.

From there, it was practically all down hill.

Nine games into the season, the Irish have lost a litany of players to injury. Major injuries have ended the seasons of starting quarterback Dayne Crist, senior tailback Armando Allen, and tight end Kyle Rudolph on offense alone. The loss of Rudolph robs the Irish offense of an All-American, the loss of Allen robs it of one of its most productive, and the loss of Crist removes the most indispensable players on the Irish roster. Three catastrophic losses any way you slice it.

Offensively, the Irish also lost presumed starter Dan Wenger for the season before it ever started, inserting first-timer Braxston Cave into the lineup at center. After finding his form at the slot receiver, Theo Riddick finds himself in the midst of a major ankle injury, robbing the Irish of it’s second most explosive offensive threat, and a player absolutely instrumental to Kelly’s spread attack. Starting right tackle Taylor Dever missed significant time, forcing redshirt freshman Zack Martin to flip over to the right tackle position, and pushing senior Matt Romine into the left tackle position, a spot he’s taken limited snaps in during his four years on campus. Running back Jonas Gray also has missed a significant portion of the year with an injury, turning a four-headed position that was the deepest position on the roster into a 1-2 punch of Cierre Wood, playing his first football since his senior year of high school, and Robert Hughes, a jumbo-sized back that’s a square peg in the round-hole mold of spread running backs needed for Kelly’s system. Finally, wide receiver Michael Floyd, the Irish’s best offensive player, battled hamstring issues of his own before sitting out the Navy game, watching from the sideline the Irish’s ugliest loss of the season.

On the flip side of the ball, no injury took a greater toll on the defense than the strained MCL of senior nose tackle Ian Williams, who could’ve player his last game in a Notre Dame uniform after being injured against Navy. The Irish battled depth and injury issues at middle linebacker from the beginning of the year, losing senior Steve Paskorz to a knee injury and Anthony McDonald to a variety of ailments, paving way for Carlo Calabrese, who suffered a major hamstring injury of his own. A position that was already incredibly thin forced the Irish to counter with true freshman Danny Spond and Prince Shembo in the middle, but Spond’s been out with injuries for the past few weeks and Shembo suffered a concussion Saturday afternoon. The Irish plugged senior Brian Smith in at inside linebacker, a move Kelly would barely concede to during spring ball unless it was an extraordinary emergency situation.

In the secondary, the Irish safeties have been decimated by injury. Both Jamoris Slaughter and Danny McCarthy have struggled to stay healthy all season, with Slaughter injuring an ankle that’s been incredibly slow to heal and McCarthy having a nagging leg injury that robbed him of the speed necessary to cover the back-end of the defense. With two of the four scholarship safeties on the roster sitting out, the Irish were forced to play the odd couple of Harrison Smith and Zeke Motta in the defensive backfield, two maximum effort players that leave some coverage skills on the table.

Irish fans have likely been spoiled during the transition years of the past two regimes, where a veteran roster stormed out of the gates quickly. Kelly wasn’t dealt the same hand, playing with a deck of cards short some very important faces. For all the struggles the Irish have faced along the offensive line since Charlie Weis took over the program, the line play has been decent considering three new starters at the positions most vulnerable and two veteran guards who have hardly taken the leap to elite that many had hoped. Defensively, outside of the game against the Naval Academy, the Irish have played a much better brand of football than they did last season, limiting explosive plays by the opponent and surviving with a more structurally sound, bend, don’t break, defense.

On the road to a 4-5 record through nine games, the Irish can easily look back at losses to Michigan and Tulsa and wonder if a healthy Dayne Crist couldn’t have gotten them through two opponents that had sizable flaws. And since losing Riddick and Rudolph, the Irish have lost every game not played against Western Michigan. It’s the ultimate game of “what could’ve been,” but the Irish are likely playing it after seeing their training room filled with some of the most important players on the roster.

For those looking to bury Brian Kelly after nine games at Notre Dame, they were given the opportunity late in the fourth quarter. After calling a timeout with 42 seconds left, Kelly decided against putting the game on the leg of his field goal kicker David Ruffer, and instead bet on the arm of freshman quarterback Tommy Rees, who dropped back from the Tulsa 19 yard line and targeted wide receiver Michael Floyd, running down the sideline in one-on-one coverage.

Floyd had a step on the undersized defensive back, but Rees’ back foot throw kited into a strong wind, helping 5-foot-9 cornerback John Flanders come down with an unlikely interception, sealing Tulsa’s 28-27 victory on a somber Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame Stadium.

“We knew we had a one-on-one match up with Mike Floyd, and certainly wanted to give that an opportunity for success and score a touchdown there,” Kelly said after the game. “We took a timeout there to talk about it. But I think we all saw what happened.”

What happened was a heart-wrenching interception that put an ugly ending onto an otherwise great performance by Rees, who became the first Notre Dame freshman to throw four touchdown passes in a game. It also dropped Notre Dame to 4-5 on the season, putting the Irish in the difficult position of needing a win against either Utah or USC to have a chance to play in the postseason.

Let’s take a look at five things we learned during Notre Dame’s 28-27 loss to Tulsa.

1. The new goal for Notre Dame? Win two out of the next three.

Even before the tragic events of this week, Brian Kelly acknowledged that today’s game was one of the most important of his career. Needing two wins to clinch a bowl birth in the final four games, anybody could point to games against Tulsa and Army as must-have wins for the Irish.

But with the Irish losing today, they’ll now need to beat either Utah or USC, as well as an upstart Army team that’s 5-3 for the first time in over a decade.

“The most important thing still is for us to get to six wins,” Kelly said emphatically. “We’ve got to win two out of three now. That’s the number one goal, to win two out of three games minimally to get to six wins.”

The Irish will have a much needed weekend off before playing Utah, undefeated and ranked No. 8 team in the country. The Utes battle an upstart Air Force squad today and No. 4 TCU next Saturday, so they’ll be coming off two physical opponents before facing the Irish.

After that the Irish face another triple-option attack when Army joins Notre Dame for the first ever football game in the new Yankee Stadium, before finishing the season against rival USC, who likely will view the Irish as part one of their two-game postseason, against rivals Notre Dame and UCLA.

It’s an uphill road for the Irish, especially in light of their injury problems, but far from impossible.

2. Bob Diaco’s defense did their job.

After a wobbly first two series, defensive coordinator Bob Diaco slowed down a Tulsa attack that had great speed and a quarterback proficient at running the zone read.

Tulsa averaged just under 7.5 yards per play on their first two offensive possessions, but the Irish defense stood strong after that, holding Tulsa to only 272 total yards on 56 plays, below five yards a touch — impressive work considering Tulsa averaged 491 yards a game and 6.3 yards a play entering the game.

Diaco’s mixed a nice blend of pressure and zone coverage, sacking Tulsa quarterback G.J. Kinne five times, but ultimately the unit came up empty on Tulsa final offensive drive, when the Irish gave up a crucial 3rd and 26 in deep zone coverage.

Diaco and his defense took a lot of heat this week, but playing without starting nose tackle Ian Williams and insider linebacker Carlo Calabrese, the unit deserves a ton of credit for putting together a gritty performance, giving up only 13 of the 28 points the Golden Hurricanes scored.

3. Special Teams and the big play killed the Irish.

On a day where Notre Dame came up with a big fake punt that extended a drive and led to a Notre Dame touchdown, the Irish special teams killed them, with Tulsa’s two points on a critical returned extra-point attempt the swing in their one-point victory. David Ruffer’s only two misses on the season have come on blocked extra points, and the Irish offensive line gave up the block right off the center, with linebacker Curnelius Arnick scooping it up and returning it to for a touchdown.

Electric return man Damaris Johnson also returned a punt for a touchdown, bringing Tulsa back from a nine-point deficit, thanks to a low punt from Ben Turk, the lack of hang-time all that Johnson needed to weave his way through the Irish gunners.

And finally, the Irish were victimized by the big play, courtesy of linebacker Shawn Jackson, who caught a deflected Tommy Rees screen pass and closed the half with a 66-yard interception return for a touchdown, putting Tulsa back in the football game when it looked like the Irish were capable of marching down the field and extending the lead into double-digits. Some terrible luck for the Irish on a high-percentage play call that looked like a big gainer for Notre Dame, only to have the ball pin-ball its way into the arms of a Tulsa defender and pull the Hurricane within two points.

4. Tragedy for Dayne Crist turns into opportunity for Tommy Rees.

After starting the game slowly, Dayne Crist stepped up from Tulsa’s pressure rush and darted for the Notre Dame sideline, picking up the first down and then tight-roping along the sideline for a 29-yard gain. But Crist was hit high and hard, came down awkwardly on his left knee, and possibly ended his season with what’s been reported as a ruptured patellar tendon.

“It seems every medical report I get, it ends with, Done for the season,” Kelly said after the game. “The first report I got was a bruised knee, and then it was some with his patellar tendon. It’s a severe injury, I can tell you that, just seeing Dayne briefly.”

Heartbreaking news for Crist, who worked his way back quickly from a torn ACL suffered one year to the day last season in mop-up time against Washington State.

With Crist gone, Kelly turned to true freshman Tommy Rees, who was the lone bright spot in the Irish loss to Navy last week. And Rees responded right out of the gate, going 15 of his first 18 with three touchdown passes.

When asked to assess Rees’ play, Kelly was emphatic.

“Awesome. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t be more happy for the kid,” Kelly said. “True freshman goes out there, hasn’t played. He just competes.”

Still, Rees’ recording setting day with be remembered for his final throw, the back-breaking interception that sealed the game for Tulsa. Kelly walked through his thought process, putting the game in the hands of his freshman quarterback with the Irish in field goal range.

“Why not try to get Michael Floyd one-on-one against a 5-9 corner? We called a timeout and said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. Second down, take a shot here. If we don’t like it, let’s throw the thing away.’ Tommy wanted to do all those things. Tommy is a gamer. He knows the deal. He’s the quarterback.”

Pressed on his thought process, Kelly defending the decision to try and throw for the win instead of relying on kicker David Ruffer to make a field goal in a tricky wind.

“This is how we play. We’re going to play aggressive,” Kelly said. “We’re going to play smart… I would make the call again and I would hope that the process of learning would have a different outcome.”

Rees finished the afternoon 33 for 54 with four touchdowns and three interceptions, cementing his role as the starting quarterback against Utah after the off-week and putting the 2011 quarterback position into murky water, something nobody thought would happen entering the season.

5. Football isn’t always fair.

There’s no way to put today’s loss in true context after what the Notre Dame community suffered through this week. While the loss of Declan Sullivan puts the football game in perspective, walking off the field after losing a game like this rings about as hollow as it possibly can for an Irish team that had so much on their plates this week.

“As a football coach, there’s been more difficult weeks relative to the game itself,” Kelly said. “But in terms of the tragedy that occurred, there’s never been a more difficult time in my life.”

On the football field, life won’t get any easier for the Irish. Brian Kelly revealed that the Irish will likely be without leading running back Armando Allen for the rest of the season.

“It’s not a good situation. He may have played his last down here at Notre Dame because of the injury,” Kelly said about Allen’s injured hip. “He wanted to dress and run through the tunnel in case it was his last time playing at Notre Dame.”

The loss of Allen just adds to the nightmare scenario for Kelly’s offense, and is a terrible way for the team’s most consistent offensive player to end his career. Allen walked onto campus tantalizing Irish fans with breakaway speed, but an ankle injury suffered during his senior year of high school seemed to limit Allen’s ability to break the explosive plays many thought he’d bring to South Bend.

Instead, Allen turned into a renaissance man, an all-around performer that ran for the tough yards between tackles as well as possessing receiving skills while excelling in the return game. When asked to transition to the spread running attack, Allen responded with an 514 yards rushing, just shy of five-yards a carry, and great all-around play. Though his career was marred with various injury setbacks during his junior and senior seasons, Allen will go down as one of the top total-yardage player in Notre Dame history.